I trust the sanity of my vessel
by Karanguni
Summary: Dick looks back, but mostly what he does is leap forwards.


No real first memories for him, like the others have just a lot of laughter. Brighter days, and he doesn't totally regret that things changed.

Once upon a time in nineteen eighty four, things were amazing. The world changes, not them. That's the reason - part of the reason - they still do this. That brings him a lot of comfort. They don't change. There's old laughter underneath the cape and cowl, somewhere. You don't have to hear it to know it's there.

'Best recollection?' Tim asks instead. First memories are reserved for people other than Bruce (they will always say); best memories are reserved for their mothers, their fathers, the ones who are gone (they will always tell Bruce). For Haly's, or Drake Industries.

'Billboards,' Dick says, 'You saw a lot of them back then. 2 in the morning on a weeknight in the right part of town and you could see the guys painting them.'

Tim nods. He's quiet that way, thinks a lot. Kory calls him "crafty", which Dick suppose fits. He's his little brother. Whatever he is really doesn't matter. One amiable arm finds its way across Tim's shoulders. They wait out the rain under the Gotham night.

'_Everything's clear, boys,_' Oracle crackles into their ears. '_Stop cuddling and looking pathetic. Go home._'

Dick, drenched and stiff, smiles. 'Yes, ma'am,' he salutes empty air, and slides off onto the edge of their building. 'Race you back?' he asks Tim.

Tim's already on his first leap, laughing like he remembers how to be a kid again.

Dick, though, has had more experience in both. Leaping. And laughing.

* * *

Dick's in a threadbare white t-shirt with a terrycloth towel over his head and Alfred doing the hover of mild disapproval by the time Tim slinks in, stealthy but too late, via one of the cave's entrances.

'Don't say anything,' Tim pre-empts Dick, wringing out his cape as Alfred transfers his attention. 'I'm less aerodynamic than you are.'

'Or just slower,' Dick suggests.

'Master Richard, one usually closes one's mouth when one eats,' Alfred manages without looking backwards over his shoulder. Guiltily, Dick chews on his sandwich, and watches as Tim gets the lecture: nocturnal activities will be the death of you, no sense in searching for crime on a night crime would be foolish to be out on, etcetera, etcetera.

'Did you take the loop over Fifth?' Tim asks, when he's done drying off.

'Nope,' Dick shakes his head. 'It's the fastest way on paper, but there's no way you or any other non-meta is making that kind of a jump from the Steele Building.'

'Shortcut through the Park?'

Dick smiles indulgently. 'I like heights.'

Tim narrows his eyes. 'Biked?'

'I'm infuriating,' Dick points out. 'Not underhanded.'

'I give up,' Tim shrugs. He knows when to stand down - one of the other neat aspects about this particular Robin that Dick can't quite get over. 'Maybe next time.'

He doesn't give up, though. Which is just as it should be --

'A_hem_,' Alfred vocalises, when Dick tries to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand.

The more things change, the more things stay the same.

'I'm going upstairs to hit the showers,' Dick stands. 'The cave's all atmospheric and everything, but there's better heating in my old room.'

'Will you be staying the weekend?' Alfred asks, clearing the dishes.

Dick shakes his head. 'New York calls, Alfie. Besides, there's already one son in the house,' he nods at Tim. 'That's more than enough for Bruce to handle.'

'He needs you here, too, you know,' Tim objects. Dick really does love his little brother - for all that he tries to say, when no one else in the family will say it. (No one else in the family needs to, anymore; that would be too easy, too insincere, for anyone else.)

'Yeah,' Dick laughs, and heads up the stairs. 'He just needs me there more: look after the whole of the East Coast. Make sure no one tries to cross the border into Batman territory. The usual.'

The manor gets pretty much unlimited everything, hot water included. It's an aspect to rich living that Dick can appreciate: on nights that are too cold and too boring, there isn't enough adrenaline to cover up the phantom ache of some of his older injuries.

Bruce'd let him fling himself from the Steele Building when it first came up off the ground, back when the skyscraper craze originally hit Gotham. He'd dislocated his left shoulder so badly that he stayed out of PE for two weeks with the excuse that he'd taken a slip down the stairs. Dick spent the fortnight out of commission as Robin running the streets instead of the rooftops.

There was - and is - a break across Main and Feldt Avenue - take a moment to come down out of the sky and you put yourself five minutes ahead of anyone who tries to maintain topographical superiority. He'll let Tim know; one day he might need it.

Batman is still faster. Batman won't ever tell. Dick's still looking.

* * *

He has a flight out at eleven, so Dick is in the kitchen at eight hunting for the orange juice. Bruce walks in at eight-o-eight, and Dick knows it's _Bruce_ because the stupid Wayne-smile isn't there yet to override the sharpness in the corners of Bruce's irises.

Dick takes a drink of the juice from the neck of the bottle, and passes it over. Bruce's eyes are bright when _he_ drinks without bothering with a glass.

'Alfie's going to kill you,' Dick points out, grinning.

Bruce screws the cap onto the top of the bottle, neat and concise movements which have always been beautiful to observe, and puts it back into the fridge which only Alfred maintains. 'Knowledge is power,' Bruce says. 'What he doesn't know won't hurt him.'

Dick wonders if Bruce knows how much Bruce actually lives by that principle. (The time you pushed me away; the time you took me back. The time you pushed me away again; and the time you let me return. The time you never came close; and the time I came back again.)

'Dick?' Bruce asks, opening the morning paper and looking at the younger man over the edge.

'Nothing,' Dick says, shaking his head. 'It's just good to be home.'

He sits and eats cornflakes with too much sugar on top; Bruce eats half a slice of toast and a full mug of coffee. Dick tells Bruce not to read so fast - he's checking out the Knight's latest match report on the back page - and Bruce doesn't go through the financial section quite as quickly as he could.

Dick points out the Knights are in good form this season.

Bruce asks him when he flies.

Dick tells Bruce that Tim's been putting together well.

Bruce answers that Robin is increasingly capable.

Dick talks about Manhattan.

Bruce lives in Gotham.

'The curator job you've landed me in is crazy. I don't think I've read this many books on history in years,' Dick rambles as he brings their dishes to the sink.

'I know,' Bruce says.

Dick looks over his shoulder. 'I'm actually enjoying it,' he admits. 'Even if it's a lot of sitting still.'

'I know,' Bruce says, and something in his eyes or voice or smile (and that silent, invisible, beautiful laughter) makes Dick want to read every book on earth, sit more still than a stone, reach upwards and onwards forever.

He's smiling. Stupidly. For what feels like forever, before Bruce says, 'You need to be at the airport soon.'

Bruce doesn't drive him there or hug him goodbye: just the touch on Dick's shoulder like a brand through his clothes and skin, there one moment and gone the next.

Dick dreams about flying as his plane takes off for La Guardia, the sun rising in his viewport window and chasing the shadow of the bat. 


End file.
